Plan requirement
| Subscription | Suite Team or higher |
| Access | Admin |
A proactive message greets a visitor before they ask. It appears above the launcher, and the conversation starts only when they click it.
Create one
- Open Admin Center, then Channels, then Messaging and social, then Proactive messages.
- Click Create proactive message, name it, and pick the brand and the Web Widget channel. One message runs on one channel.
- Write the message and choose the response: Agent hands the visitor to a person after a follow-up message, AI agent replies with an answer you select.
- Set the rules: the conditions, and the event that checks them.
- Choose when it may be sent and how often.
- Click Publish. It is live in the widget immediately.
What you can condition on
Visitor gives you Page URL, Page title and Visit history, which is New user or Returning user. Device gives you Language. Metadata gives you business metadata you pass in yourself, and only on the Web Widget. Page URL and Page title are case-insensitive.
Combine conditions with AND and OR. Nesting needs at least three of them; with two or fewer the option is not there.
Under When to check the conditions, the event is the visitor loading the page or being on it, with Minutes and Seconds for how long that has to last.
Be specific about when
- Good: Page URL contains /returns, checked after ninety seconds, Once per customer.
- Bad: every page, after five seconds, Every time the conditions are met.
The first reads as noticing somebody might be stuck. The second reads as a pop-up. Zendesk recommends the third frequency, Every time the conditions are met, only for critical or time-sensitive messages. Once per visit sits in between: it returns on the visitor's next visit.
Once per customer is remembered in the browser, so a visitor who clears their cache counts as new again.
Offer something specific
"Can we help?" gets ignored. "Looking for our returns policy? I can send you the link" gets answered, because it shows the message is about the page they are on.
Only when you can answer
Time of day is a setting of its own, separate from the conditions: any time the conditions are met, only during business hours, or only outside them. The last two appear only once the channel has business hours. Without that restriction a message sent at night invites a conversation nobody is having.
Before you start, and where it stops
Agent Workspace and messaging have to be on, and you need at least one Web Widget channel to publish on. You can create up to 140 proactive messages. None of them reach a customer who is already in an active conversation, and they do not run on social channels or third-party bots.
Published messages can be paused and resumed from the same page, so a campaign can be stopped without being rebuilt.
Measure whether it works
Look at how many are accepted against how many are sent, and at what happens to the conversations that start. A message with a very low acceptance rate is being ignored, which is a cost even when nobody complains.
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